


Well Matched

by Thorinsmut



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Child Abuse, Complete, Confessions, Dwalin tries hard to do what is right, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Abuse, Imprisonment, Insecurities, Kissing, M/M, Masturbation, Realizations, Self-Doubt, Snuggling, Torture, fantasies, soulmates fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-16 18:59:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3499340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thorinsmut/pseuds/Thorinsmut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dwalin came of age, he eagerly watched the stuttered words "I... I..." write themselves on his wrist in violet ink so dark it was nearly black - the first words his soul's match would speak to him.</p><p>He'd long stopped dreaming of a happy meeting, but he'd never expected it to be a beautiful thief child, chained and tortured, who spoke them to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Touch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/903889) by [Thorinsmut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thorinsmut/pseuds/Thorinsmut). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written because my mind sometimes mulls over 'what if Touch-verse had been a soulmates fic'?

He was just a child.

He was just a child, chained up and tortured but he would not surrender his information. He was just a child, but Dwalin was left alone to break him.

A beautiful red-haired child-thief with blood in his teeth, screaming foul curses as he fought the chains in the bottom of the New Belegost prison. Dwalin cupped the side of his head in his big murderer's hand, pressed in with just enough pressure to imply he could smash it like a grape.

"What's it going to take to break you?" he asked.

"I..." the lad hiccoughed, focusing on Dwalin for the first time, and Dwalin's heart froze. "I..." Tears welled up in his brilliant emerald and gold eyes, pouring down as he turned his face into Dwalin's hand and sobbed. He nuzzled into Dwalin's deadly hand as though it were kind, as though it were capable of offering comfort.

He was just a child.

When he came of age, Dwalin waited breathlessly for the gift every Dwarf was given, to help them know their match. The first words their soul's match would speak to them. Some had none at all. Some had several. Dwalin had seen a stammered "I... I..." write itself on his wrist in deep violet ink. It would stay there until the words were spoken to him or his match died.

In the cockiness of his youth, Dwalin had dreamed how the meeting would go. Would they be so overwhelmed by Dwalin's bravery and strength and valor they could not speak? Would they be shy, or speak with a stammer? He'd promised himself he would be patient with them... no, _him._ If he were meant to be Dwalin's match in body as well as soul, he would be male. Not everyone was. Some had happy marriages with others and kept their soul match as a good friend, but Dwalin hoped they would be matched in all things. Sometimes Dwalin dreamed him a warrior to match himself with any weapon. Sometimes Dwalin dreamed him a craftsman of extraordinary skill, solidly round and handsome. Sometimes Dwalin dreamed him small and delicate and pretty to be pampered and adored.

Then there was Azanulbizar, and something broke inside Dwalin that was not meant to break. Some fault in the stone he'd been carved of fractured under the pressure, and he was not as he was meant to be. He held too much rage. He got into a fight, as any Dwarf might, but he killed his opponent. With his bare hands. Punched and punched and could not make himself stop.

He was a murderer, and he did not dream any more of a happy meeting of his match. Why wouldn't they stammer in horror if he'd accidentally spoken the words on their wrist to them. Him, the killer. Who would want him for a match? He was good enough for the roughest brute guard work, but no more than that.

Dwalin kept the words covered. He planned to tell his match that they could both pretend it had never happened.

He was just a child.

He was just a _child_ , a beautiful child chained to the wall and tortured and Dwalin sent in to terrify him into talking. Dwalin had unchained him before he could think it through, and the lad collapsed sobbing into his arms. Dwalin did not have to check his own wrist, to see it blank, to know. The lad reached into his twisted heart, sparked protectiveness through the deadened fog he'd walked through so long.

Dwalin held him until he stopped crying. Knelt on the cold stone floor and cradled him in his arms. He was so small, all bones, far too thin. Dwalin awkwardly tended his wounds when the lad was done crying. He was too rough to do it well, but the lad did not complain. Dwalin tried not to see the worshipful expression in the lad's eyes. The lad somehow did not know Dwalin was a murderer. He would find out soon enough. Everyone in New Belegost knew.

Dwalin asked, because he was supposed to, where the emerald necklace could be found. The lad told him, curled up in his lap and whispering against Dwalin's shoulder.

Dwalin did not know how long he might have stayed there, holding the little thief. He'd heard that it could be overwhelming to meet your match, but he had not been prepared. He had not been prepared at all. He'd only just met this person, and cared about him just as much as he'd once cared about his own well-being. He held the lad in his arms, slowly rubbing up and down his skinny back. His mind was blank of anything else, until the lad did the same. He nuzzled against Dwalin's neck, slender little fingers coyly twisting a curl of Dwalin's rough beard. The lad's eyes were horribly knowing when Dwalin drew back in shock, his smile sly but inviting through bruised lips.

Dwalin's stomach rolled over sour as he took a step back and _saw_ himself. Holding this _child_ as though he had some claim on him. This entire scenario – it was wrong. Utterly wrong, before soul matches were brought into it. Dwalin set the lad down on his feet, though he resisted being put down. He was such a scrawny little thing, shivering with his lip trembling and his brilliant hazel eyes begging. Dwalin wrapped his own heavy warg fur around the child's narrow shoulders to keep him warm – he nearly drowned in it. It should not warm Dwalin's heart to see his smile as he hugged it around himself, rubbing his beardless cheek against the soft worn fur.

"Come with me," Dwalin said, leading him out of the awful torture room. He did not intend for the lad to take his hand and press close against his side as they walked out. When the interrogators would have stopped them – Dwalin was not _supposed_ to be freeing prisoners – a wordless snarl and a flex of his fist to make the chains of his knuckleduster rattle was enough to have them backing away. He was the killer, the Dwarf with something broken inside him, but he could use that for this brief moment to protect.

Dwalin tried not to notice the way the lad looked at him, as though he were Durin herself reborn. He was not. He was nothing _good_ , but this one thing he could do. He could free this child, who's words had been written in nearly-black violet ink on his wrist. He would free the match of his soul and never see him again.

Nothing was right, but it was as right as he could put things.

Dwalin had lived years in a fog, hiding from the knowledge that he was a dangerous beast with a broken chain, but things he'd heard around him sprang clear in his mind now that he needed them. He went directly to the office used by the 'troublemakers', Dwarves who'd been guards in Erebor before the Mountain fell. The ones who said the way things were here was _wrong_. He'd never paid attention, just done as told.

One of the guardhouse cooks passed the other direction with a plate of meat pastries, squeezing hirself against the wall to keep out of his way. Dwalin grabbed one off the plate and handed it to the lad without a second thought. The lad bolted the first half of the pastry down as though he hadn't had a full meal in days, and the rest of it slowly – as though his stomach were shrunken from not enough food for much longer than that.

There were three guards in the office, good Dwarves. Grey-beards from Erebor, good for his purpose. They fell silent, eyes widening as they took Dwalin in – a beaten child wrapped in his furs and tucked tight against his side, looking up at him as though he'd invented mithril. Dwalin did not know what he was doing, at all, but he had to try.

The lad all but hid behind him from the other guards in the room as Dwalin led him in. He had to look behind himself for the lad and tug him gently forward to get him to sit in a chair. Dwalin hunkered down in front of him, met his worried hazel eyes.

"You're safe now. No one in this room is going to hurt you," Dwalin promised, glancing around at the other guards to let his eyes add 'or I will kill them'. "Do you have any family, lad?" he asked.

The child hesitated. He'd answered anything Dwalin asked him before, down in the 'interrogation' room. Dwalin reached up on instinct, gently cupping the side of the lad's face in his hand. His eyes closed, leaning into the touch.

"Please tell me?" Dwalin asked.

"I do. I _did_ , but... _he_ took me away and they don't want me anymore?" the lad answered, bottom lip trembling. Dwalin heard one guard's breath catch. It was not right. No Dwarf family would throw their child away, reject them. Would they? Were things truly so bad here in New Belegost?

"I need you to answer any questions these guards ask you about your family," Dwalin told the lad. "Can you do that for me?"

The lad hesitated, but he nodded. He grabbed on to Dwalin's tunic when he stood to move away, ducking with a flinch when Dwalin looked back, but not letting go. He stood to follow when Dwalin would have tugged away.

"No, you need to stay here," Dwalin told him. He untangled the lad's hands from his tunic, only to have them now attached to his hands instead.

"I want to stay with you," the lad begged, clinging tight to him.

Dwalin pressed the lad back down into the chair, ignoring the bright tears that were beginning to fill his beautiful eyes again. He pressed the lads hands against his scrawny chest, held them there with one hand. "Answer these guards' questions, and do as they say," Dwalin instructed. This time the lad let him go when he stepped away. One of the guards had drawn a cup of water and was offering it to the lad to wash down the last of his pastry. Dwalin centered on the senior guard, Eimyrja, who nodded him toward the door before he could do the same to her.

"You have to find his family," Dwalin whispered – before she could ask all the questions in her eyes. Before she could ask him what in Durin's name he was doing. He did not know himself, only that he needed to protect the lad. The beautiful red-haired child wrapped up in his furs _must_ be protected. Dwalin had not cared about anything for so long, but _this_ he cared about. "Find his family, or a good family if... if they don't want..." how could anyone not want the lad? He was such a sweet little thing, watching Dwalin from across the room.

"Why?" Eimyrja answered, dark eyes drilling into him for answers he did not know if he could give. "Why this? Why him? Why now? Why bring him here?"

"Because you are the ones who know it isn't right," Dwalin answered. He could hear his own desperation in his voice. "He's just a _child_ , he needs to be protected." Protected from the torturers who'd hurt him, from Dwarves like Dwalin who would just do as told, Dwarves like whoever the 'he' who'd taken the child from his family was. Protected from whoever would touch a child such that he tangled his fingers in Dwalin's beard with a knowing look.

"Why?" Eimyrja asked again.

"Because," Dwalin growled. He turned his back to the rest of the room as he tore at the buckle of his knuckleduster, tugging it off to show his bare wrist where only he and Eimyrja could see. "Because I had _words_ here an hour ago."

"That wee lad..." she breathed, looking toward him. Dwalin shoved his knuckleduster back on.

"He is a child," Dwalin reminded. "He can't even be thirty yet."

"Children grow up," Eimyrja answered.

"No," Dwalin said, looking back toward the lad. "I met him as a torturer. It can't be right, even if I wasn't..." Dwalin looked down at his big hands, flexed them in his knuckledusters, rough and scarred and deadly. Killer hands. "The lad needs better than the likes of me," Dwalin said. Eimyrja's eyes had softened. She did not interrupt as he continued. "Find his family, or a good family. Don't tell me who they are. Don't tell me his name. Don't tell him mine. Don't tell him."

"You'll reject your soul's match?" Eimyrja asked.

"He would do it himself, if he knew what I was," Dwalin answered. Some Dwarves had to, for whatever reason, if they could not abide their soul match. Dwalin had never understood before how difficult it was. His heart pulled him toward the lad, but he cared more about what was good for the child than what he wanted himself. He did not really know what he wanted, other than to hold him and guard him from all harm. Far too easily it could turn itself into raising the child up to be completely dependent on him, tangled up body and soul. It was ugly when things like that happened, relationships grown incestuous in spirit if not in body.

"I'll save him the pain of it," Dwalin continued. "He'll never know." The lad was too young by far for his mark, and it would not show on his arm at his coming of age – already being spoken. He would never have to read Dwalin's threat written on his skin. He would be just another Dwarf without a soul match, free to chose his own destiny.

Dwalin took one last look at the child, his soul's match, pale and scrawny with all that red hair. Bruised but so trusting. He hugged Dwalin's warg fur close around himself as he quietly answered the questions that were being put to him, petting it with his slender fingers as he glanced over at Dwalin. Big beautiful eyes begging, all emeralds and gold.

"Tell him he can keep the fur," Dwalin said, turning away to leave.

He did not look back, no matter how much he wanted to.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Dwalin finds something

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The structure of this fic is going to be: Long chapter, short chapter, short chapter, Long chapter. So have a short chapter today.

Dwalin found the warg fur in the reselling section of a furrier's shop.

He was looking for a fur to replace it. He had not expected to find the one he'd given the lad. It was cleaned, but it was unmistakably the same one. It had the little notch in it where his knife had slipped cutting it, the perfect drape of a fur that had shaped itself to his body and his axe harness over years.

He overpaid for it. He hated haggling with people who were terrified he'd hurt them if they didn't agree with him. He settled the familiar old fur over his shoulders and thought of the child. He hoped the child was safe, was loved and cared for. Eimyrja had assured him the lad's mother wanted him, desperately – that she wouldn't be surprised if the dam killed the sire who'd stolen the lad away from her and seen him misused. The child would have a good life now. Maybe he had sold the fur to afford better food. Maybe he or his mother had found out who Dwalin was, and wanted no part of him.

It did not matter. Dwalin had done what he could for the child. He'd protected his soul's match, the one he needed above all to keep safe.

Dwalin had done his part, hadn't he? He did not need to do any more, did he?

There were still torturers in the bottom of the New Belegost prison. There were still tortured Dwarves, some of them children, locked in the cells. There was still bad rock, with Dwarves living in it. Who would live such a place, with a choice?

Dwalin found his boots carrying him toward Eimyrja's office. He hesitated at the door for long moments, with her eyebrows raising higher and higher in question.

"It isn't right," Dwalin finally said. "None of it's right. I got him out, and safe, but every single Dwarf is someone's match, or someone's child, or someone's love. It's all gone wrong in New Belegost."

Eimyrja nodded as though she were proud of Dwalin, as though he'd done something clever.

"Do you want to fix it?" she asked.

"Aye," Dwalin answered. If something was wrong, it needed fixing. There was something broken inside him that could not be repaired, but this he might be able to make better.

"Then welcome to the troublemakers, Dwalin," Eimyrja smiled.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nori spends a little quality time with himself and his fertile imagination

Nori came of age, and there were no words on his wrist.

He was a Dwarf without a match to his soul, and he didn't mind that. It was probably just as well, he was a bit odd anyway. He still had his scars – physical and not – from the time Thjofr took him. Be a bit hard to find someone who matched _him._ His Amad said a match was more about someone to complement you than someone identical to you, but then she got to discussing color theory with Dori and Nori tuned it out.

Being without a match meant he did not have to wait around for someone. He could chose as he liked. He could dream of being with _anyone_.

There was no good privacy to be had at home, living all crowded in with his Amad and Dori and Ori. Nori would not have it any other way, but he did sometimes need to be alone too. Nori had never completely given up practicing hiding and sneaking and stone sense, nimble fingers and razor tricks and seeing unusual paths and possibilities, though he was far more cautious now that he did not need to use those skills to survive. There were always good hiding places to be found somewhere in New Belegost, if you could find them.

Nori hid up in the quiet dark of one of his favorite hideouts and unlaced his pants to take his cock in hand. His mind flitted from image to image and finally settled on one of his favorite fantasies through his adolescence. Dwalin. It worked every time without fail. Nori had hidden and watched the guardsman a time or two, once he'd finally figured out _who_ Dwalin was. Aside from family and a few close friends in the guard, people were afraid of Dwalin, of the killer. Nori always smiled because he knew different, he knew that Dwalin was gentle. It was Nori's secret, and he loved his secrets. Maybe Dwalin was only gentle with children, but Nori liked to think he would be gentle still.

Strong arms cradled around him, warm furs surrounded him, and in Nori's fantasy Dwalin's big hands did not content themselves with just rubbing his back. His entire body was touched and admired, loved, with Dwalin's heavy-browed blue eyes looking at him as though he were wonderful. Big fingers, rough with callouses but tender in touch, cupped Nori's stones. They were rolled, the shape of them felt through the tender skin, squeezed but never hard enough to hurt.

Sometimes Nori imagined Dwalin's fingers exploring lower, pressing into his crease and Nori always opened to give him more. He had a small cache of toys for the purpose – a healthy young Dwarf had needs. Not today. Today Dwalin's hand traveled up to Nori's cock, squeezing him tight and stroking sure and slow. Nori squirmed against it, gasping Dwalin's name in near-silent ecstasy. In his fantasy Dwalin's hand cupped the side of his face, overwhelmingly kind and strong and gentle when Nori had been starved for any affection, and Nori spent into his hand.

Nori came back to himself wrapped up in an old blanket rather than in Dwalin's arms and furs. He'd desperately wanted to keep the fur Dwalin gave him, but he'd known better. It was too nobby, too rich to be worn and worth too much to be kept. A thief did not keep what could be sold. His Amad would have let him keep it because he loved it, but Nori hadn't known that. He sold it the first time she got sick with the dragon cough. He'd pressed the coins into her hands, promising he would work hard and be good, that he would not be needy or a burden, and begging her not to send him away. Thjofr had told him so many times that he was nothing but an unwanted burden, of course he'd believed it. He would never forget the way his mother cried and pulled him into her arms – still strong even so sick. She'd promised him again and again that he was loved and wanted, just for himself. That he did not need to do anything to earn it, he was family and he was loved. She'd told him enough times, and Dori too once he stopped being angry, that Nori could finally believe it.

Nori had his family around him, and he did not think he would have gotten back to them if it weren't for Dwalin. He smiled as he cleaned himself up, sated for the moment. He wondered, sometimes, if he ought to introduce himself to Dwalin. Thank him, maybe? But Dwalin wouldn't remember one scrawny little thief. Nori sometimes liked to imagine that he _was_ remembered. In one of his fantasies Dwalin would track him down now that he'd come of age. Nori would demonstrate his gratitude with his hands and his mouth and finally by riding himself on Dwalin's cock while Dwalin praised him for how beautiful he had grown. He rode for ages, until his thighs and arse burned and his breath came in shuddering gasps as he spent all down his own leg. It was a favorite, but it was not exactly as he wanted it. A stone cock does not spend, or have a warm broad chest to lay on afterward.

Still, Nori knew well enough that a some fantasies ought to remain fantasies. It would not be _good_ if Dwalin actually hunted him down expecting to be paid in gratitude. Dwalin would not remember him, anyway. Nori would just keep the memory of Dwalin's hands and abuse it as much as he liked. It was more sensible to flirt with people he actually knew. Like Asutri the baker's apprentice with her soft sweet lips and biceps like steel, or Falr the cartwright's son with his shy smile and big laugh.

Little flirtations and fantasy never hurt anyone, and Nori was lucky enough not to have a soul match, so no one could say he shouldn't.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which they meet again

Nori kissed Dwalin the second time in a cave in the Misty Mountains.

For so many years, Dwalin had convinced himself that the beautiful child was his soul's match only in that he was who Dwalin needed to meet when they met. He'd needed to be pulled out of his fog, needed to _care_ , and the child had been there. Dwalin did not like to think how long he might have gone on blindly following orders and fearing himself if he'd not met the little lad as the match of his soul.

Dwalin had thrown himself into making New Belegost a better place for everyone – into fixing what was so obviously broken. He was broken himself, but their entire _people_ were or they would not have abided the conditions they lived in. A Dwarf endures, but children were starving and dying crushed in the bad rock.

Dwalin started where he could, making it known that any guard who harmed a child would meet him in combat in the time and place of his own choosing. He'd delivered a few beatings and only once had to be dragged off the Dwarf he was attacking and held back when the other troublemakers were afraid he'd go too far. He would not, though, he could feel it. The beast of his rage had a target, but Dwalin held its chain.

Dwalin used the opportunity of being sent before Thorin to answer for it to inform his cousin of a few ways in which the settlement of New Belegost was broken.

"New Belegost has gone wrong," Dwalin said, sucking the blood from his split lip. "It's all wrong, and you know it. If _I_ am the one punished for beating a Dwarf who tortured a child – _a child_ , Thorin – then this mountain is not a place I can choose to live."

Lady Dis had wholeheartedly backed Dwalin, and at the end of that day there were new laws in place to protect prisoners. With Dwalin's backing the troublemakers – guards who'd been on the cusp of being pushed out of the force – were promoted to more responsibility instead. There was still work to do, always. It was a long slow grind to make the guard _good_ , and there was more work to be done to make it so Dwarves did not _have_ to turn to crime. Dwalin did as much as he could, and used his relation to the King and the fear of his rage and reputation as needed.

For years, Dwalin convinced himself that the child had been the match of his soul only because he showed Dwalin what he needed to see. He never tried to look him up. He had his family and his few friends in the guard and he did good work in New Belegost, but he was still the killer. He was still the Dwarf the lad had met as a torturer. The lad still deserved better than the likes of him.

He'd convinced himself well, until he met Nori signing up for the quest to Erebor. Dwalin did not recognize him at first. The entire family was beautiful. The youngest was sweet and would surely grow into a handsome thing someday with that nose of his, the eldest was solid and so handsome with his mithril braids he might even outshine Bombur. The middle brother caught Dwalin's eye – his tall peaks were designed to draw attention, his thick beard braids meticulously tended. _So much_ thick red-brown hair, his pale face sharp with a big handsome nose and his braided eyebrows. He was not so solid as his elder brother, but Dwalin liked the way he moved, the way he smiled. They were a handsome family, tight-knit brothers sticking close together, and that was always a joy to see.

Nori, he introduced along with Dori and Ori. He glanced over at Dwalin a few times, but not as though he were afraid. Almost as though he wanted to smile.

Dwalin didn't recognize him until he confessed that he did have a few crimes on his record. 'A wee spot of poaching' as an adolescent, and the professional theft of an emerald necklace as a child. A brilliantly planned and executed theft, in the very worst of the fall of New Belegost before it became any better.

A beautiful terrified child chained to the wall gasping the words on Dwalin's wrist in answer to a threat.

He was not a child anymore. He had grown up well, praise the forges, with his brothers beside him. Dwalin was painfully glad of it. He could not find his voice or any thoughts to add until after the brothers had briefly explained the situation of Nori's crime and Thorin had of course dismissed it as not Nori's fault and accepted them into his Company.

Nori had done well for himself, and he did not know that Dwalin's threat was meant to mark his wrist. Dwalin was determined that he would never have to. He would not use his mark to pressure Nori, it would not be right.

They got along well on the road, with Dwalin trying carefully not to favor Nori with more than his share of attention. Nori often had a smile for him, though, including him in a story or a joke now and then. Nori was fun to watch spar, laughing as he made Dori leave his comfortable patterns to chase him, or viciously fast knives against knives with Fili. Dwalin enjoyed sparring with him too, Nori spun around him, fast and light with his brilliant hazel eyes laughing. It took all Dwalin's skill and concentration to defeat him. The more he knew Nori, the more Dwalin liked him. For so many years he had been no more than an idea, a child in Dwalin's mind. He liked the grown reality of Nori far better.

He had his brothers and he had a good life, but Nori was not unmarked by his childhood. There were times when things reminded him and he would shut off like a door slammed closed and retreat to hide behind Dori, pressed close to his elder brother's back. Ori would often try to distract everyone, draw attention away from Nori before he joined his brothers to hold Nori tight. Dwalin could not yet tell what things bothered Nori – he wanted to know so he could avoid them, but he was not granted the intimacy of that knowledge. What he _could_ do was take over drawing attention away from the brothers so Ori could go to him quicker.

Dori noticed of course, and thanked him for it only a little stiffly.

"Nori is a member of the Company," Dwalin dismissed, and left it at that.

 

The first time Nori kissed him was in Rivendell. Nori found Dwalin alone after the Company bathed in the fountain, when he was walking back toward the Company's camping space dressed in only his trousers and Nori in only a turn of towel slung low around his slender hips.

"Thank you," Nori said. "I noticed you looking out for Ori in the fighting." Dwalin might have said something about it being his job and left it at that, ignoring the fact that he wanted to care for the family of the Dwarf he cared for so much. Before he could do anything Nori had stepped forward on his tiptoes and kissed him. It might have been intended for a brief peck on the lips, Dwalin did not know because his hand had come up to cradle the nape of Nori's neck, hold him close. Nori groaned, brilliant eyes falling shut as he leaned against Dwalin with more of his body, and the kiss did not end.

The kiss was soft, slow gentleness in the give and take as Dwalin followed where Nori lead. Nori's arms slid up to circle Dwalin's neck, and Dwalin's hand found itself on the small of Nori's back, holding him close. His bare skin was hot against Dwalin's, his body so good to hold. The kiss might have lasted forever, but Dwalin did not want to take more than was offered. When Nori drew back, Dwalin did the same and set him free. Nori smiled at him as he stepped back, then turned wordlessly and was gone. If the lingering brush of his nimble fingertips across Dwalin's knuckles as he left was intended as invitation, Dwalin did not take it. Nori did not know how Dwalin was beginning to feel about him. He would never be able to share something casual, not with Nori. He did not have it in him, best to leave it alone entirely.

If it _was_ an invitation declined, Nori did not seem to take it personally. He was just as friendly after as before. The Company entertained themselves in Rivendell, and Nori helped with his mapmaking and planning skills, getting them undetected into places the Elves might not approve of them going. He still sparred with Dwalin, still had a story and a joke and a smile for him. If there sometimes seemed to be a speculative edge in the way he watched Dwalin, Dwalin let it alone.

 

Nori kissed Dwalin the second time in a cave in the Misty Mountains. The Company set up a fireless camp, cold and wet from the storm but all glad to be out of the weather and alive after the Stone Giants. Bombur passed out a cold supper, and families began to settle down to rest. Nori was pacing, though. He'd removed his wrist guards and flexed his hands over and over, tapping at the stones of the cave but never seeming satisfied.

"You alright?" Dwalin asked, when Nori was close to him.

Nori shook his hands out, shaking his head. "My stone sense has all gone numb since the Stone Giants. I don't like it. I can't feel if I'm on bad rock or good." He tapped at the stones again and huffed a disgusted sigh.

Dwalin had reached out and taken Nori's nearest hand in his before he thought it through. He pressed gently between the knuckles, kneading the muscles to relax it. Nori immediately sat in front of him, hopefully offering his second hand too.

"Let's get some life in these," Dwalin offered. He removed his knuckledusters and set to work on Nori's hands. Dwalin massaged each finger in turn, careful to be gentle. Nori's clever hands were his life. Nori sighed, relaxing into the attention.

"We've met before, you and I," Nori said quietly. "Decades ago. You won't remember me, but..."

"I remember," Dwalin cut him off. As if he could ever have forgotten that day. Nori's eyes went wide, looking at him. Dwalin looked back down at their hands, turned Nori's over to run his fingertips across the faint manacle scar the guard had left behind. "You were the first I got out of there," he explained.

"You did more than that," Nori breathed. He reached out with his free hand to pet the warg fur over Dwalin's shoulders. "Tended me, fed me, gave me your fur and got me back to my Amad."

"I've replaced it a few times since then," Dwalin shrugged his shoulders. It did not have to mean anything. Nori did not owe him any gratitude for trying to right a wrong that should never have been allowed in the first place. Nori dropped it, thankfully, and Dwalin continued massaging his hands.

"Is this helping?" he murmured, eventually. The Company were quiet, most sleeping. Only he and Nori were up, sitting with their boots intertwined at the back of the cave. Nori had melted toward him as he worked, sleepy and content.

"My stone sense is still numb, but it feels nice," Nori whispered back. He caught Dwalin's fingers, massaging back. Dwalin allowed it for a moment before he tried to take control again, which lead to a brief wrestling match between their hands with both of them trying not to laugh aloud. Nori's hands were quick and squirmy, and Dwalin did not dare grab them hard enough to hurt him. It ended with their fingers intertwined, wrists up to show them both bare of a soul mark. Nori held it there for a long moment, before he slid his fingers out of Dwalin's grip and traced them over Dwalin's wrist.

"Who's to say we we shouldn't have our fun?" Nori invited, the look in his eye leaving no doubt about what kind of fun he meant. "We're not waiting for our matches, neither of us has a mark."

"I did, once," Dwalin confessed.

"Oh," Nori blinked quickly in surprise, fingers tracing over the wrist he did not know had once held his own words. "Dead?" he asked. That would be a reasonable assumption, with how many had been lost in the fall of Erebor and how many others had fallen at Azanulbizar. Dwalin was almost tempted let him believe it.

"He is alive and well," he answered instead.

"He _rejected_ you?" Nori hissed in disbelief, hand clenching tight around Dwalin's wrist.

"Who would want the killer?" Dwalin asked, the old sting of it still aching. There was more to him than that, but there were few enough who'd see it. It was one thing to suggest a friendly tumble, and another to know your soul was matched to a murderer's. He'd made his choice not to tell Nori, to spare him the pain, and he'd abide by it. He tugged his wrist away, but Nori's grip only tightened, not letting him go.

"That's _not_ what you are," Nori protested. "If that was all he could see, he doesn't deserve you. Anyone should be honored to... have..." he trailed off as he looked down at Dwalin's wrist beneath his petting fingers, eyes going round with a sharp intake of breath.

"Hammers and coal," Dwalin spat. He should never have let himself forget that someone could summon their mark back on their match's skin. Of course, Nori thinking of soul marks while holding his wrist would bring it up. He tried to jerk his arm away seriously this time, but Nori clung to it too tightly. He landed sprawled in Dwalin's lap after a brief struggle, still clinging to Dwalin's wrist to see the stuttered words written there in deep violet.

"You... but that's my..." Nori breathed, shock and confusion written across his face when he looked up at Dwalin. He finally let Dwalin's wrist go, but only to grab Dwalin's hand and try to shove his own wrist into it as he lifted himself upright to straddle Dwalin's lap.

"No," Dwalin closed his fist tight on nothing. "Bad enough I said it, don't read it."

"I need to see," Nori gritted through his teeth, eyes blazing. "I have to know."

Dwalin relented. He squeezed Nori's wrist in his hand, unable to look him in the face. He did not want Nori to see his threat. He did not want it written across the tender skin beneath his hand. Nori twisted his wrist away, still blank.

"Try again," he demanded in a whisper, shoving his hand back into Dwalin's grip. "Think of being my soul match."

"Not everyone's matches are paired," Dwalin whispered back, surprised at how much that thought hurt. Nori might deserve better than him, but Dwalin couldn't deny he wanted him. He wanted his soul to be matched to Nori's and Nori's to his.

His words were clear on Nori's wrist when he pulled it away again. Dwalin's threat was written in his own square writing, deep green in the faint lamplight that lit the cave. Nori made an inarticulate little whimper, covering his mouth with his other hand as he stared at it. There were tears gleaming in his bright eyes.

" _I_ have a match?" he breathed in disbelief. "I'm matched with you?" he reached out, fingertips resting lightly against the center of Dwalin's chest.

"It doesn't have to mean anything," Dwalin promised him, whispering to keep it just between the two of them – to not wake anyone. "I swear, Nori, I won't demand anything of you. You don't have to tell anyone, we can pretend it never happened. We don't have to be matched."

Nori surged forward, silencing Dwalin with a kiss. It started rough, a bite and a demand, but soothed almost immediately into gentleness. Nori's kisses were all kindness, all slow softness, warmth and closeness in the give and take.

"Do you _want_ to reject me?" Nori asked when he finally drew back, fingers twisting in Dwalin's beard.

"No," Dwalin admitted, stroking his back – holding him close.

"Then _don't_ ," Nori's whisper sounded near tears, giving Dwalin's beard a tug. "Don't take that choice away from me." He looked back at his own wrist, Dwalin's threat was already fading on his skin. "You knew?" Nori demanded. "You knew, all these years?"

"You were a child," Dwalin pointed out. It would have been wrong.

Nori snorted slightly, twisting a curl of Dwalin's beard around one nimble finger. "I wasn't innocent," he said, smile turning sly and knowing and far too close to the way he'd looked at Dwalin as a tortured child in his arms.

Dwalin flinched, catching Nori's hand to draw it away from his beard. "I know," he said softly. "I knew." He'd seen it in the way the lad responded to him, and mourned for what had been taken from him. "You were a _child_ ," he repeated, pressing both of Nori's hands into the center of his narrow chest. "You needed a family and a childhood, not me."

Nori's smile faded from his face, taking on that same hunted expression he wore when something reminded him of his past. He curled in on himself, but he did not leave to go hide behind Dori how he usually did. He crumpled in toward Dwalin, hiding his face against Dwalin's chest as he shifted to lie beside him on the cave floor – arm and leg thrown over Dwalin's body to hold him close. Dwalin wrapped his arms around Nori, squeezing him as tight as Ori usually did to comfort him.

"You were a child and I was sent to torture you," Dwalin whispered. It would haunt him forever that he did not know what he would have done if Nori weren't his match. As it was he'd done the best he could for Nori, and for the rest of New Belegost afterward, and he could live with that. "How could I ask anything of you, after that?" he asked. "I could have hurt you with this, Nori. I wanted you to have your own life, a good life."

A few short shudders passed through Nori's body – the quietest crying Dwalin had ever witnessed if that was what Nori was doing. He did not know what to do other than just to hold him, to try and offer him the comfort he usually took from his brothers.

"Thank you," Nori murmured eventually, picking at the leather of Dwalin's axe harness across his chest and not looking up at him. "I did need my family, and maybe I needed that freedom, but I am not a child anymore. I've always liked you, and you like me? You kiss me like you do. Why couldn't we..." Nori trailed off, ducking down further against Dwalin's chest as though he were suddenly learning to be shy after how boldly he'd gone for what he wanted.

Nori _wanted_ Dwalin. The knowledge shone in Dwalin's chest like molten gold, beautiful and bright enough to burn to the bone.

"I can't do casual," Dwalin confessed, giving him a squeeze. "Not with you."

"I can do serious," Nori whispered quickly, almost too eager. "I mean, we can try?" he modified.

"We can," Dwalin agreed, trying to hold his hope back – to keep his expectations reasonable. "We can see if we're well matched." He stroked Nori's back, held him close. In the middle of a dangerous quest, cold and bruised in an uncarved cave in the mountains while the Company snored around them was not the best place for it, but Dwalin could not help himself. The ritual words he'd learned so long ago rose up on his tongue. "Nori son of Kori, will you accept me as a suitor and do me and my house the honor of courting?" he asked.

Nori gasped, bright hazel eyes going wide as his narrow face turned bright red. He made a soft whimpering noise, but he nodded as hard as Dwalin had ever seen anyone nod in his life. He could not help his soft chuckle as he cupped the side of Nori's face, and kissed _him_ for the first time. The first of far too many times to count, he dared hope.

"We'll tell our brothers in the morning," Dwalin promised, glancing over where they were all sleeping. It would be a shame to wake them. "But I _will_ court you with the honor you deserve."

Nori turned even redder, if possible. His fingers caught in Dwalin's axe harness, holding tight. "But I'm just..."

"The match of my soul," Dwalin answered. Nori clung to him tighter, hiding his face against Dwalin's chest, and Dwalin held him close.

"Can I sleep beside you?" Nori asked, mumbled into his chest.

"Aye." Dwalin could not imagine sending him away. He finally pulled the blanket out of his pack and arranged himself to greater comfort with Nori in his arms, the blanket covering them both as they curled together.

Nori's clever fingers curled around Dwalin's wrist, holding it and his own terrified words possessively tight. There was no knowing what the quest might bring them, or how their courting might play out, but Dwalin held Nori close anyway.

For the first time in too many uncounted years, he dared hope that _he_ could have a joyful match – heart and mind, body and soul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this short fic.  
> <3,  
> TS
> 
> And if you'd like a small smutty coda to this fic please turn your eyes toward -   
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/833992/chapters/15944698


End file.
